Off Day
by DrawMeASheep
Summary: Tony and Ziva spend an accidental Sunday together. Neither spoilery, nor plotty.


Disclaimer: I don't own it…it's not one of my precious toys…

Spoilers: No. But thanks for the chocolate. Set during season 6.

Summary: Tony and Ziva spend a Sunday together because…eh. Sometimes things just happen, often due to the influence of Guinness, which I call 'Guinnfluence.' Sometimes it's just time for plotless, meandering Tiva, regardless of believability. Plausibility? Something like that. My goodness. Also, how excited am I that I've finally seen the teaser for the _G.I. Joe_ movie? Inappropriately so, I can assure you. 80s fangirl squee!

* * *

The alarm clock squealed feebly with its final beep when Ziva brought her arm around, tracing a deadly arc from the opposite side of the bed to her nightstand. Pulling the covers up a little tighter around her shoulders, she rolled back onto her stomach, slipping her hand under her pillow to lightly touch her SIG as she dropped back into a comfortable sleep.

She had to check her watch to find out that it was over three hours later when she finally got out of bed. She sighed, lamenting the fact that no one appeared to be able to manufacture an alarm clock that lasted more than a few months as she quickly slipped into her running clothes.

The morning was still brisk when she stepped out of her apartment building. Her blood began pumping within the first few minutes and she increased her pace. It had been a long time since she'd taken the Arlington Memorial Bridge, but she turned onto it this morning. It was late enough that she wouldn't instinctively seek a man in an orange watch cap. How long had it been now? Almost two years? She hadn't worn the cap in quite some time, but it was highly visible on the shelf in her hall closet and had even made the trip to Israel and back. Although she didn't want to forget, remembering still wasn't easy, so she kept her head down and ran faster, winded by the time she had finally crossed the river.

Her hesitation was brief; still, she was unable to ignore the fact that she was momentarily confused about which way to turn. She decided on left. Her new apartment wasn't that far away from her old one, but she had yet to develop the same familiarity with her new neighborhood. After a few more turns, she was fairly certain she was not in the correct place. Feeling adventurous, she decided she could keep running until she got back to more recognizable streets. It was Sunday, after all, and her only plans involved purchasing a new alarm clock.

O

"God damn it!" Tony swore, hitting the floor as he rolled over in his half-sleep. A few well thought out blinks later, he was fairly certain of the fact that he had fallen off the sofa in Dan's living room, where he'd crashed after a night with Ohio State basketball on the projection screen. Also, that he had a raging hangover. He pressed his hands to his eyes and forehead, trying to somehow push the pain out. "No more Sam Adams," he promised the empty living room.

After tracking down his shoes and coat, he poked his head into the bedroom, but didn't bother saying goodbye. Based on the number of empties in the recycling bin, Dan had earned the snores. Tony carefully closed the door and made his way out the front door. The sun was so bright. He patted his coat pockets, even though he was pretty sure he'd left his sunglasses on the dashboard of his car. It wasn't parked that far away and it was a straight line from the stoop. Trusting to luck, he clamped his hand over his eyes, letting in only the smallest sliver of daylight, and broke into a jog down the front path. His luck ran out just as he crossed between the hedges.

He was content to lie on his back on the sidewalk after the collision occurred and would likely have remained there for awhile if not for the familiar voice speaking directly into his ear. "Tony!"

He turned his head to look at Ziva through squinty eyes as she pushed herself into a squat on the sidewalk beside him. "Are you stalking me?"

"Why would I stalk you?"

"I don't know." He sat up, seeing that this bizarre accident had resulted in a painful tear at the knee of his pants. It hadn't exactly helped his headache either. "I could come up with a Gemcity-like theory if you have any Advil on you."

"I meant that there are far easier ways to follow a person. I could simply track the GPS in your phone for example."

"Are you going somewhere with this, Ziva?" She reached down with a hand he noticed was bleeding to help him up. He didn't accept, rising on his own. "Looks like you scraped your hand."

She held up the left one, which looked even worse than the right one that she had extended to him. "I scraped both. You should watch where you are going."

"Yeah. Sorry about that."

"Never mind. If I keep going down this block will I get to back to the Potomac?"

"Uh, I don't know? I'm not that familiar with this part of Langley. I just know how to get from the highway to my buddy's place." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Dan's house. "And yes, I stayed at his place because I had too much to drink, so don't even think about starting the interrogation about my night."

She was staring at him, mouth agape, but didn't say what he assumed she would. "Langley? Are you joking?"

"Well…I think we're a little south of Langley, but we're definitely in Virginia. We might be closer to Arlington. I'm not in the best direction-giving mode at the moment."

"I got turned around and I've been running for over an hour. I just want to go home and eat a banana."

"Maybe treat your wounds?" When she frowned, he grinned. "Lemme give you a ride. It's the least I can do after completing the impossible task of taking you down in an ambush."

"But you did not plan it," she said, walking toward his car.

"Still counts." He started to feel better the moment he put his sunglasses on. "Ninja fell down and went boom."

"Consider yourself lucky that it happened when I was already tired."

"Tired? But you said you'd only been running for an hour."

"Tony…"

"Hey! We do not pinch the driver!"

O

Ziva stood in front of her sink, wrapped in a towel. The abrasions on her hands, sustained in her surprise collision with Tony, had stopped bleeding, but still had an uncomfortable sting and suspicious black spots under the skin. She had raw red patches on her elbows as well, but they weren't deep enough to have picked up any small pieces of gravel like the ones on her hands. Picking up a pair of tweezers, she opened the bathroom door, but thought better of going straight to the living room.

She went to her bedroom and pulled on a t-shirt and jeans before making her way to where Tony was stretched out on the sofa. He woke with a start when she pushed his legs aside to clear a space for herself. "What?"

"I need your assistance."

"Couldn't figure out how to put your bra on? I can help with that."

She rolled her eyes. "Could you just …here."

He looked at her questioningly when she handed him the tweezers. "What do you want me to do with these?"

"Pick out the little rocks."

"Little rocks?" She held up her hands for him to see. "Oh." After successfully cleaning out her right hand, he asked, "Why are you asking me to do this?"

"You are here." She extended her other hand, feeling the gentle pressure he exerted as he grasped it. "And you are doing a good job."

A few silent minutes later, he let go of her left hand. "All set. Need me to work some band-aid magic?"

"I do not have any band-aids."

"I've got some in my bag." He picked up the backpack he'd brought upstairs with him, pulling out assorted articles of clothing and other objects before finding a crushed white box. "Told ya. Maybe you can do my knee after I get out of the shower."

She tried to pull her hand back just as he was about to place the first band-aid. "Do your knee? What kind of expression is that?"

"I scraped my knee when I hit the pavement." He continued bandaging her hands. "I think the least you can do is take some time to dress my wounds."

O

Tony sniffed the shampoo before squirting some onto his palm and lathering his hair. He hadn't expected Ziva to have something girly, flowery or fruity, but it didn't hurt to check. As he rinsed the suds from his hair, he wondered why her hair smelled so good if she wasn't using a scented shampoo. He went through a systematic sniff-test of every bottle in the shower, failing to find that distinctive eau de Ziva for which he was searching. He settled on a quick scrub-down with a body wash that claimed to be unscented and turned off the shower. "Ziva?"

She walked in, shoving a towel toward him. "Anything else?"

"I get my own towel?"

"Were you planning to drip dry? Or perhaps waste all my toilet paper?"

"Well, there's a towel hanging right here, so I just thought…"

"That is my towel. And it is wet."

He tucked the fresh towel she'd delivered safely around his waist. "So?"

"You are such a typical man."

"No, I'm not," he protested, "because I am inviting you to lunch just as soon as you take care of me."

"I fail to see how paying someone else to feed both of us after I do something to make you feel good is something other than typical."

He thrust his knee forward to emphasize that it was the only part of his anatomy he was asking her to care for at the moment. "Will you just slap some band-aids on me? I picked the gravel out of _you._"

She frowned for a moment before saying, "Sit down. I will get the ointment."

"Why is it that you have antibiotic ointment but no band-aids of your own?" he asked a few moments later as she knelt in front of him as he sat on the downturned toilet seat. He was really only asking about the ointment to distract himself from the fact that she was kneeling in front of him as he relaxed, wearing nothing but a towel – he'd seen at least three pornos that started exactly like this. Willing himself to remain calm, he shot out of his seat the moment she had finished. "Thanks."

Slowly rising from her crouch, she eyed him suspiciously, her gaze lingering noticeably below his waist. "Not a problem. I believe you mentioned something about lunch?"

"Huh? Yeah. Or breakfast. Whichever." He bent forward, doing his best to look casual. "I'll just get dressed and, uh…"

"Yes. I noticed that you did not have a fresh pair of pants, so I…I set your clothes out on the bed while you were in the shower."

"Right." He smiled a few moments later when he found that she had mended the tear in the knee of his cargo pants. While he recognized the shirt she had laid out, he couldn't remember putting it in his backpack in case he needed it. In fact, he couldn't remember having seen this shirt in months… He decided it wasn't worth asking too many questions when he wandered out of her bedroom a moment later and she smiled at him.

O

Ziva sipped her coffee as she watched Tony devour the last bites of her pancakes. "Perhaps I am too critical of your physical fitness."

"Oou fink ahh…" He paused and took a sip of milk before swallowing. "You think I'm sexy? Was it the wet, wrapped in a towel look that did it for you? Or was it…"

"I was just thinking about the things I see you eat in relation to how you look. It is shocking you do not exceed the weight limit in the elevator."

"Hey, I work out."

"Yes, but I doubt you do enough to account for all the burgers, vending machine candy and…" She winced as he poured extra syrup from the sticky dispenser on his final bite. "…_that_!"

"Don't forget the bacon." He shoved the laden fork into his mouth immediately after making the correction.

"Double bacon, because you insisted that they give you the bacon I did not want." She leaned back, smiling in spite of herself as she watched him chew. "Why can you never order a single, simple thing at a restaurant?"

"I thought you'd already decided my eating habits are…"

"I mean in general. Why must everything be served with three side dishes?"

He shrugged, reaching for the check the waitress had left shortly after delivering their food. "Competition, looking for deals…whatever." He waved her off when she took out her wallet. "I got this one."

She restrained her first impulse to ask what the exchange would be, instead answering, "Thank you."

"I don't mind covering the check so much when I'm not with someone who's gonna insist on calculating out the taxes and differences and…"

"You cannot blame McGee for assuming that you are trying to screw him over."

"Doesn't make it less annoying when he does math on his napkin." He tossed a few extra ones on the pile when she raised an eyebrow at him. "She wasn't _that_ good a waitress."

"McGee always leaves at least twenty percent."

"And when was the last time McGee bought you a surprise Sunday breakfast?"

She glanced at her palms as she set her empty coffee cup down. "McGee has never been foolish enough to ambush me on a Sunday morning."

"I said I was sorry. And I _did_ buy you breakfast. What else do you want me to do?"

The waitress had picked up the check and refilled their coffees before Ziva had decided on an answer. "You can help me pick out a new alarm clock."

He grinned. "You'd think a federal agent and a Moussad assassin could come up with something more interesting to do on the weekend."

"I think we get enough 'interesting' at work."

She found herself smiling as he watched her. "So, you thinking the classic beep or the buzzing with the radio option, or maybe one that allows you to wake to the sounds of rainforest creatures…"


End file.
